Children for Sale

From slums and misery in Brazil, hundreds of children and teenagers leave each day in search of tourists. At home there is no food on the table. On the beaches of Fortaleza there are plenty of men eager for easy and cheap bodies. Left to themselves or encouraged by their parents into prostitution, many children try to survive with what the night of Fortaleza has to offer - sex and drugs.

NGOs are trying to rescue some of these children, but during the humid nights in northeast Brazil sleeping on the floor is the lesser of two evils for the 400 street children of Fortaleza. Homeless, without food or parental love they quickly become experts in petty theft, drugs, and prostitution. On the streets and in newspaper ads, all the Brazilian women sold to tourists are 18 years old; no more, no less. To avoid the police, who are now more attentive to child sexual exploitation, documents are falsified and they avoid the main streets.

It is estimated that every year 200,000 men travel to poor countries in search of sex. Fortaleza is very much on their route. Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese are the most frequent customers. The men get the pleasure, the girls the money; three to twenty Euros at the most. According to the latest data of the Brazilian geographical research, 62% of the population is living below the poverty line. Brazilians are at the mercy of the tourists. Women want to escape poverty and men believe that anything can be bought. The lack of opportunity turns the tourists in disloyal competition.

The industry is designed so that no law prevents exploiters from profiting from the misery of Brazil. Foreigners and also some Brazilians rent houses on the beach and taxi drivers take the girls there. In this industry profit is the law. Drug dealers realize that the prostitute is the best vendor. For the dealer it’s excellent, because he creates the dependency on the drug and it also creates a system of trafficking. It makes it impossible for her to denounce him because she also becomes a dealer.

Although rare, cases of imprisonment for sexual exploitation have increased in Brazil. But the industry knows how to take advantage of any gap in the legislation. Besides drugs and prostitution, sex tourism acts as a gateway for human trafficking.

I'm pretty jaded, but the woman's story about the baby at the 30min mark really upset me. It's crazy that Brazil is hosting a FIFA soccer tournament, (has it happened yet, I'm not sure) and a summer Olympics; but ignores its societal problems. But this neglect of the most poor and vulnerable happens all over this world and is nothing new. The interview with a nun was interesting. Brazil needs more people like her.

Birth control or sterilization has anyone heard of it , simple solution if poverty ,starvation , prostitution is the problem limiting the amount of children being born seems like the best solution . Also putting a few of those sex tourist behind bars for 10+ years would serve as a deterrent not for tourism but for the pedophiles

When you're too poor to eat, buying birth control or sterilization surgery isn't high on your priority list.

Emilie Noel
- 07/16/2013 at 23:39

In these situations, it is implied that these services and education will be provided by a charity or health organization, because it is so obvious that they are poor. No logical thinker would say to buy birth control before food, so we assume it is clear.

Amanda Barker
- 07/17/2013 at 03:19

Because charities and health organizations have money that grows on trees. In fact, they have so much money they're handing out birth control instead of saving children from sex slavery.

CaseDigidy
- 07/25/2013 at 17:23

There wouldn't be children being sold into sexual slavery if there wasn't children living in these sordid conditions to begin with... educating women and providing birth control are the only ways to stop this.

bringmeredwine
- 07/15/2013 at 19:47

Brazil is an extremely Catholic country. Birth control is not an option. Crazy, no?

Jennifer Wappler
- 07/14/2013 at 11:00

pedophilia is a mental disease. men who lust after the bodies of babies are mentally sick and science needs to urgently investigate where this horrific mindset stems from in order to get them away from kids

Pedophilia is a sexual sin just like homosexuality, fornication and bestiality. The problem with the world today is they believe they are not accountable to anyone for their actions. Evolution teaches this. Evolution's goal is to make people believe that they came from primordial sludge then there is no god. So, man makes a god/image to suit himself and this god allows anything. Take Hitler as an example of this. Science cannot help. Man's conscience is seared as with a hot iron - it feels nothing and carries no guilt or shame. The Holy Spirit of God through Jesus Christ is the only solution. No other religion has the answer and cannot heal the mind and bring the conscience back into reality. When people spiritually wake up knowing they will be judged and there are consequences for their actions then they will fall to their knees in confession and repentance before the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

over the edge
- 07/21/2013 at 07:01

where in the theory of evolution does it state "hat they came from primordial sludge" ? then you go on to bring in Goodwin's law right away good for you but Hitler was a Christian. i do not look at life and my interactions with others without guilt or shame if i wrong them. i just do not need a threat of eternal torture to force me to treat others well as you apparently do. also your post is very preachy and proselytizing is not allowed here. seeing as this is your first post i will give you the benefit of the doubt. but please feel free to make your case but refrain from preaching

GODHELPUS
- 01/25/2015 at 20:56

SO TRUE!! sad so many people believe in evolution this world is LOST

CaseDigidy
- 07/25/2013 at 17:25

Men are taught to go after women who are frail, weak, stupid, immature. Look at the women glorified in the media, they can barely string together a coherent sentence. It is not a far stretch to go from that to a child. It is the dominant-submissive lust they are after.

watchtheduck
- 07/14/2013 at 01:50

With all of the money and power that men wield in this world, if instead of competing with other men for who has the bigger house, boat, plane, d-k, etc. the money and power was used to solve the issues of poverty, we would live in a much different world. Bill Gates and others in his league have more than enough to help solve the problems of poverty... instead they live in pavillions, the size of which could house an entire village of starving people as they eat at extravagant banquets, and fly their jumbo jets and command their fleets of ships, and spend more money in a year than an entire village could spend in a lifetime. It's criminal if you ask me that some people hoard so much for themselves, while others simply because of where they live have to beg in the streets. I know that there are many that won't agree with me, but I find it beyond disgusting.

Clearly you think over rich powerful men are the problem...? You have issues that exonerate your own complicity through finger pointing. 'They have so much, they should give back' mentality - what are YOU doing to address the issue? Finger pointing? That doesn't achieve anything. Set an example. Make a solution that others can follow. Otherwise all you are really saying is "it's not my fault...it's that man over there!"

Kill them with a virus? Holy s*it! Aren't you just so wise up there in that ivory tower. What do you live on? What house do you live in? Car you drive? Clothes you wear? Got yours? Others got too much? If you really believe what you are spouting on about, including your barbaric wishes of inflictions on the preordained guilty, then perhaps you should use some of your enlightenment to convince those rich men to give it up...somehow I don't think you'd make a convincing argument, by your own example of righteousness. The problems are much bigger than your finger pointing, and much closer to home.

CaseDigidy
- 07/25/2013 at 17:28

Sounds like you hit a nerve with this elitist.

Craig Fowler
- 02/05/2014 at 10:18

Sad though chlld prostitution is, and should be tackled head on, I have to defend Bill Gates.

Although he is rich, he does far more for poverty in the world, with his Foundation and has contributed an amazing 28 billion dollars to help developing countries. People like him and Warren Buffet deserve our thanks and not our condemnation just for being wealthy. These are rich people whom seem to care!! Perhaps the other millions of millionaires should take note!!

The real answer should be to have a small tax on international trading worth 791 trillion dollars per annum, and re-route this to solve such issues.

DigiWongaDude
- 07/14/2013 at 00:22

"Although rare, cases of imprisonment for sexual exploitation have increased in Brazil."

They're rare, not because arrests aren't made. They're rare because the authorities take pay-offs and bribes to compensate their abysmal pay. The tourist's pockets are deep for that kinda charge. Then there's the women who run the girls in to the ground and addiction, under the guise of 'caring' for them (for their pimping slice of course).

Back in the old days...during the European Dark Ages...if parents could no longer take care of, or feed their children, it wasn't unheard of for them to be abandoned, literally, in the wild. This is partly where the background of the story of Hansel & Gretel originates (see "The Big Chill - Little Ice Age").

Here, in present times...the wild is the glittering city lights and golden beaches. Children are even more often abandoned and the wolves are everywhere. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

This industry of exploitation is tolerated and perpetuated on so many levels by the indifference of so many. You can point the finger at dirty old men all you want, I get that - because to even consider the epidemic is systemically supported, affects a much larger percentage of the population and sheds a disturbing light on those we'd ordinarily wish to hold in higher regard.

Blame poverty, drugs, parents, lack of education, society, inequality, lack of opportunity...or just dirty old men...whatever helps you deal with it I guess?

Any society that tolerates this kind of activity through a superficial rejection of it, is sick to the core. And these jungles of wild hungry creatures, feeding and preying on each other for survival, are growing and regressing into depravity year on year. When we collectively allow our children to become part of the 'food chain', that depravity can surely know no bounds. Open your eyes and see just how this depravity is tolerated!

Think I'm offering no solutions? DNA swab the tourists on their way in. DNA swab every arrested individual. Build a database and make the perps think twice. Make them take their sperm home with them (as a Thailand tourism campaign once touted). Pay authorities decent wages...exceptional wages. Reward informants for tip-offs. The government could buy its children's safety, and if it can't afford to then foreign, western, wealthy governments through foreign aid (and tourism) can... instead of looking on with such helpless pity.

Wherever there are huge differences in exchange rates, you'll find sexploitation is rife across the board with many people directly or indirectly cashing in on the action. That influx of tourism wealth can be put to such good use - it's simple stup*d, children are not for sale!

This goes on and on and on...and it seems to be getting worse, as globalization and the spread of information make it easier for predators to find prey. What will happen as poor nations get poorer? How many new generations of exploited children will there be in a hundred years? I agree with watchtheduck: if only someone could get working on that virus. I think we'd soon find the world devoid of most old men--and the few left would be the good ones. Can't happen soon enough.

"I think we'd soon find the world devoid of most old men--and the few left would be the good ones"
Holy Christ you are demented. Most old men are evil? I pray for our future that you don't breed...

watchtheduck
- 07/13/2013 at 18:28

If it weren't for the men buying the bodies of women and children, this wouldn't be an issue. What is it about men that separates them from their humanity turning them into monstrous predators? Is it testosterone or is it more societal conditioning? Whatever it is, I wish there was some kind of killer virus that these girls could pass onto to the men without themselves having it, so that the men who do seek out these children and poor women, would die a slow and painful death. Maybe that's what it would take to stop this abuse.

Well you have to also consider; what would they do for money if not sell their bodies? I'm not saying it's right, just bringing up the question. If there were no men willing to pay for sex would all these poor homeless girls just starve to death?

jonathon wisnoski
- 07/13/2013 at 23:01

Thousands starve to death every day, even through we, as a planet, produce nearly 1/3 more food than everyone on earth at the moment could ever eat.

No one cares if a few children are slowly starving in a gutter somewhere, as long as they are kept out of sight.

Nwttp
- 07/15/2013 at 17:23

Believe me, I know, just not my point. Just because something exists doesn't mean everyone can get their hands on it.

watchtheduck
- 07/14/2013 at 01:34

Many of these girls are not homeless and are pimped out by their parents in order to provide for the family. Poverty is a societal problem and it's not up to little girls and young women to shoulder this problem so that their families can eat. Imagine a world where rich and powerful men, instead of seeking to prey on these vulnerable girls by trafficking and exploiting them, would instead use their money to help fund solutions to the extreme poverty. Even if they only offered a handout, it would be more humane than stealing a child's innocence just so that child and her family could eat.

jonathon wisnoski
- 07/15/2013 at 17:38

So that is your solution? All of these tourists should just donate enough money so that these children do not have to make the choice of starvation or prostitution, or watching their siblings slowly die or prostitution?

watchtheduck
- 07/15/2013 at 20:25

I was not offering "the solution" as the solution is more complex than simply having tourists offer handouts. What I said was that poverty is a societal problem and that poor girls and young women should not have to shoulder the problem by selling their bodies. There is a solution to most problems, and the first step towards any solution is to discard what isn't working and find a better one. It may be working for the lecherous rich opportunists who prey upon the vulnerable and throw crumbs at these girls while stealing their innocence, but in the long run it does not solve the problem and only destroys the human spirit, of the men who have no soul and the women and girls whose souls they destroy.

jonathon wisnoski
- 07/15/2013 at 20:45

"What I said was that poverty is a societal problem and that poor girls and young women should not have to shoulder the problem by selling their bodies."

Poverty always falls on the shoulders of the poor. It is, like, in the definition.
I understand that this situation makes you uncomfortable, and you would rather sweep it under the rug, even though that would mean many more people starving to death.
But I am saying, that is a horrible thing to say. You do not have the right to give these girls a death sentence just because of how they live their lives thousands of miles away. Regardless of how much you believe your Western morality is superior to their own.

watchtheduck
- 07/15/2013 at 21:40

This is about a lack of better options for the poor. It is not about my "discomfort" regarding the situation but the lack of better alternatives and greed that allows people to starve. Can you think of no better solution to the problem than to condone the molestation of children for cash? Is this really the best and only solution that we as a global society have to offer? If so, then it is not "Western morality" that should be questioned, but Global morality.

jonathon wisnoski
- 07/18/2013 at 03:21

""Western morality" that should be questioned, but Global morality."

How, by saying that if it is different than my morality than it is wrong?

Most cultures find nothing wrong with selling sex. Many cultures find nothing immoral about sex, and that extends to not considering it taboo for the young. I have no idea about the history or cross cultural beliefs concerning the combining of the two.

But for example, the age of consent historically, and in non western cultures is on the order of magnitude of a decade lower. For example in 1875 Western culture had an age of consent of 12, making prostitutes of 12 perfectly legal. Around this time, this would of been considered moral. I believe cultures in the West now with long histories (Jews, for example) still have rituals that name 13 year olds adults. So a 13 year old prostitute, by many cultures definition, is not an abused child, but instead a working professional adult.

"Can you think of no better solution"
The only solution you have come up with is having them starve in some out of the way corner, so at least I am doing better than you.

mediatorguy
- 07/13/2013 at 16:44

In the documentary, one of the people interviewed is a sociologist and photographer; from what I can hear, his name is Rob Sinolafiera but I can't find him via Google. Does anyone have the actual spelling of his name?